Gillespie: 'We've answered all the questions'

By ALEXANDER BURNS

07/16/2012 05:17 PM EDT

Keeping up the Romney campaign's effort to turn the page on the Bain and taxes narrative, Ed Gillespie beat back questions from Laura Ingraham about whether Romney had any more aggressive response planned, and whether there's any chance Romney will release more than two years of personal tax returns:

INGRAHAM: Will, first of all, the Romney campaign — will it be giving a press conference or will he be giving a speech about Bain and business to finally put this issue to rest, or do you believe you’ve taken control of the narrative after all of these interviews?

GILLESPIE: Laura, we’ve answered all the questions. Well, actually, I’m sure the Obama campaign will come up with more questions. But we have made clear that Mitt Romney left Bain in February of 1999 to go run the Olympics — to save the Olympics. Because if you remember at the time, the International Olympic Committee was going to pull the Olympics from the United States, which would have been a huge embarrassment and Mitt Romney left a life that he loved to help a country he loved more. And he never went back. He never returned. And the fact is, you know, what we’re seeing here is what Barack Obama warned about in 2008 in his acceptance speech in Denver, when he said, you know, when you don’t have anything to run on, you try to make big elections about small things. …

INGRAHAM: So the Matt Dowd and George Will and a number of Republicans saying that the fact that Romney has not and will not release multiple years of taxes, tax returns, do you think that criticism is unfair? They are obviously saying, look, Democrats are on this, of course they’re going to be on this, but when you release this stuff to the McCain campaign, you released all these years to the McCain campaign, and MCCain decided to go with Palin and not Romney, there must be something in there. What’s your response to that?

GILLESPIE: Well of course, Sen. McCain himself released two years of tax returns, and that’s what Gov. Romney’s doing. He’s already released 2010. He’s going to release 2011 when we have all of it completed. And two years of tax returns is — full disclosure of tax returns, by the way, which is beyond what’s required by the law — is plenty for, you know, the Democrats to pick through. That’s what they want. By the way, if he released three, they would say we need five. If he released five, they would say we need six.

INGRAHAM: There’s nothing in the tax returns that would concern people or play into the Bain narrative?

GILLESPIE: No, the fact is — look, everyone knows Gov. Romney was very successful in business.

INGRAHAM: Why not release the tax returns? Why not just release them? Why not release them then?

GILLESPIE: He’s releasing 2010 and 2011 and we’re happy to talk about those. But the fact is what we really want to talk about are the Romney plans for creating jobs in our economy, for turning this economy around, getting it moving again, stopping the excessive regulation, the mandates and the onslaught of taxes and debt. That’s what the American people want to talk about and the constant effort to hold up shiny objects and distractions — we’re going to keep focused on what the voters care about and what matters to them. It’s not Mitt Romney’s tax returns. It’s their tax returns and are they able to have income to file a tax return? Do they have a job? We have over half a million people — fewer Americans working today than when Barack Obama took office.